


Once Fallen, Twice Lost

by sendal



Category: Supernatural RPF, The Sentinel
Genre: AU xover, Sandra writes fanfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:17:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sendal/pseuds/sendal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha Collins washed out of Guide school.  Jensen Ackles is a teenage Sentinel and runaway who lands in the ER one day.  Can Misha save him, or is the key to Jensen's survival a pint-sized Jared Padelecki?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Misha Collins was stealing fifteen minutes off his lunch hour to meditate in a dark supply closet when his beeper let out its annoying high-pitched noise. He was tempted to ignore it – he was a lowly summer worker, not an intern or actual doctor. The beeper usually meant someone in Dr. Anderson's office wanted coffee from Starbucks or needed to kill trees by making unneeded copies of reports. Some mind-numbing task like that. Certainly nothing exciting and nothing urgent. But when he checked the screen he saw that he was being paged to the Emergency Room, which was definitely out of the ordinary.

He went downstairs with no small sense of trepidation. Portland Grace served mostly the poor, homeless or uninsured. The ER was often overcrowded, and sometimes the guards had to break up fights in the waiting room. But at one-thirty in the afternoon on a rainy Friday it was only half-full, and Dr. Singer was filling out a chart at the nurse's station.

"You're Collins, huh?" Singer barely glanced up. "I've got a kid in cubicle three. Looks like he's a Sentinel having a zone-out, but there's no bracelet on him."

An alarm rang deep in the back of Misha's brain. “I’m not a Guide.”

Singer kept writing. His large fingers dwarfed a small cheap pen. "The hospital president's office listed you as a resource when you got hired. You went to guide school."

"I didn't finish," Misha replied. "I washed out in my second year. I’m starting medial school in the fall."

"I got two weeks of training, so you beat me. Come on."

He put the chart aside and went off down the hall with the brisk stride of a man accustomed to being followed. Misha followed reluctantly. The cubicles were separated by thin white curtains that did nothing to block out the harsh fluorescent lights or the ever-present smell of antiseptic and cleaners. They passed an old man gasping behind an oxygen mask, a very loud pregnant woman with her knees up, and then the kid that Singer was talking about.

He was maybe thirteen years old, blondish-brown hair, skinny and dirty under a paper gown. A runaway by the looks of him. Street kid. He was laying on the examination table with an IV in one arm and monitors recording his vitals. His blue eyes were open and fixed on a spot on the ceiling, and the heat of fever poured out of his skin.

"Cops found him in a doorway this morning," Singer said, sympathetically. "Some other kids said his name is Jensen, but they didn't know where he came from. The toxicology results are all clear. He's got a suppurating wound on his right thigh, a knife cut by the looks of it. That's where the fever is coming from. We started him on antibiotics. As for this – well, it looks like a zone-out to me. But we don't get many of those down here. Sentinels usually go to St. Mary's."

"Then why isn't he there?" Misha asked, carefully touching the kid's wrist.

"No ID, no insurance, no proof he's a Sentinel. They won't take him."

Bureaucracy and politics. Portland didn't have as many resources as Seattle. Didn't have as many Sentinels, statistically speaking. Which was why Misha had chosen med school there. He said, "They should still be able to send over a consulting doctor. It's required by law."

"Not if he's unidentified."

Jensen's pulse was faster than it should be, his breathing shallow and fast. Misha suspected he was only partially zoned – unable to adjust his visual perception, but perhaps well aware of the sounds and smells around him. Helpless in his own body.

"I can try smelling salts," Singer said casually.

"Hell, no," Misha blurted out. Ammonium carbonate was always the last resort, because the effects could linger for days. "Absolutely not."

Singer raised an eyebrow at Misha's tone. His instructors at guide school had often worn similar expressions before losing patience with him. Strong-headed, they'd say. Obstinate.

Misha flushed. "I mean – no. Not a good idea. Let me work with him alone for awhile."

"He's all yours," Singer replied, and promptly left.

Misha got a small towel from the supply cart, folded it into a strip, and covered Jensen's eyes with it. He linked his fingers with Jensen's and said, as calmly as possible, "I put that over your eyes so the light can't hurt you anymore. If you can hear me, Jensen, try to squeeze my hand. It's not a big deal. Just some muscles."

Nothing. The kid's pulse and respiration stayed high, his temperature at 102. Misha tried to imagine where he'd come from, why he wasn't wearing a Sentinel medic alert bracelet. Runaway from an abusive family? Cast off by parents who couldn't deal with his special needs anymore? He noted that Jensen's arms were smooth—no track marks. Whatever his life was like on the streets, he hadn't turned to drugs to ease the way.

"My name is Misha," he said, keeping his voice calm and level. "You're at Portland Grace Hospital and you're safe. If you heard us talking, then you know you have an injury and it's on its way to getting better. I'm not a Guide, but I do have guide training. So I'm just going to sit here with you for awhile, how's that?"

Jensen didn't twitch or stir. Misha would have liked immediate results, but a zone-out wasn't about willpower or discipline. Even if Jensen could hear him, his brain was still in charge of this particular episode.

"I've been reading this novel," Misha said, which was only a small lie. Until graduation a month ago, he'd been too swamped with classes to even think about reading for pleasure. And with medical school just two months away, he'd barely begun to recover his brain cells. But he had an excellent memory, and had enjoyed J.R.R. Tolkien in tenth grade, so he started retelling the story of Bilbo Baggins.

It wasn't the way he'd envisioned spending his afternoon, and he was worried that Dr. Anderson's office might not know where he was, but Misha didn't dare break away. He talked for thirty-five minutes straight and was finally rewarded with Jensen's hand twitching in his.

He tried not to get too excited and scare the kid. "Jensen? Are you with me?"

Jensen's head turned his way, the towel slipping from his eyes. He winced at the harsh light and Misha automatically re-adjusted the blindfold so that most of his gaze was shielded. Blue eyes focused on him, wide and scared.

"Good afternoon," Misha said. "Can you talk to me?"

Hoarse voice, weak. "What do you want me to say?"

"Tell me how you feel."

"I'm okay."

A blatant lie, or a strong defense mechanism, or maybe the kid was still too disoriented to even know how he felt. Misha left his hand locked in Jensen's grip and reached for the cup of ice water on the nearest stand.

"Try drinking a little," he said, and Jensen managed a few swallows before turning his chin away.

"How long have you been a Sentinel?" Misha asked.

"I'm not," was the muttered reply.

"No?" Misha asked. "You do a fine impression."

Jensen scowled at the curtain. His hand was still holding Misha's, which was another indication that he was a Sentinel in need of a tactile connection. But his palm had started to sweat from anxiety. "Can I go?"

"Go where?" Misha asked curiously. "The police found you in a doorway."

"I've got places."

"You also have a serious infection in your leg. Is there someone I can call for you?"

Jensen shook his head slightly. His head movements were cautious, controlled. Misha recognized the symptoms.

"How much does your head hurt, on a scale of 1 to 10? Ten is the worst."

Another mutter. "Doesn't hurt."

"You're lying," Misha said.

Jensen's gaze darted to him.

"Migraine headaches can be normal for Sentinels when they're feeling ill," Misha said. "No one's sure why, but there are drugs that can help with the pain."

"Don't like drugs," Jensen replied. "Taste funny."

Misha said, "That's normal, too."

"But I'm not a Sentinel."

"Who told you that?"

Jensen's eyes closed. A dismissal, maybe. But then the kid rolled weakly to his side and vomited spectacularly all over Misha's pants and shoes.


	2. Part 2

Misha broke his handgrip and grabbed a kidney-shaped pan, but after the initial purge Jensen didn't have much more to expel—some watery bile, grayish green, nothing Misha wanted to look closely at.

"Sorry," Jensen gasped as he slumped back against the pillows. His eyes were squeezed shut. "Don't get mad."

"I'm not mad," Misha said, although he was a little disgusted, and completely sure he didn't have a spare set of clothes in his car. He put the pan down, wet cloth some gauze in the nearest sink, and tried to blot himself clean. Jensen breathed through his nose and stared at the ceiling and looked like he was trying very hard not to throw up again. Misha used the call button and a nurse in a pink cardigan came to them.

"He needs something for vomiting," Misha announced, handing her the pan. “And for a migraine. And could you get me a Sentinel intake questionnaire? They're on the Sentinel Institute web site."

Jensen was mostly uncooperative with the checklist, going silent when Misha asked for his medical history and contact information. He did claim that he had no allergies or sensitivities. That was unlikely. Every Sentinel was sensitive to something did. Then again, if he'd been told he wasn't one, and had never been properly assessed, he might not know the full extent of his triggers. Dr. Singer came back with some Imitrex for the migraine and nausea, as well as an ice bag for Jensen's head.

"The pill will help with the pain and the ice helps constrict the blood vessels in your brain," he explained. "We're going to move you up to the pediatric ward in a few minutes, kiddo. You're going to be our guest for a few days until that legs heels up."

Jensen scowled. "But I don't want to."

"You don't want gangrene, either," Singer said. "Or amputation. So bear with us."

"We can get you a temporary guide," Misha added.

"I'm not a Sentinel," Jensen insisted. "I don't need one."

Singer gave Misha a look that clearly indicated Misha should deal with that problem. Misha was not at all appreciative. Hadn't he explained that he'd washed out of school? That part of his life was over. He had no regrets. His life's path was focused and clear now: med school, internship, several years of loans and grueling shifts and patients vomiting on his best shoes.

Then again, Jensen was a kid with very little going for him right now. Teenage Sentinels who didn't get the help they needed tended to have miserable, short lives.

"Whether you're a Sentinel or not, I'll stay with you until you get settled," he said.

Jensen made a sound that might just as well have been suit yourself. He still hadn't taken the pill that Dr. Singer had brought. It sat in a little paper cup, sadly neglected.

"Migraines aren't like regular headaches," Misha told him. "They're more like electrical storms in the brain. The arteries in your brain expand, and there's a lot of reaction in different nerves and lobes. The pain can be excruciating and relentless. Painkillers are highly recommended."

Jensen said, miserably, "I can't swallow it."

"Sometimes people aren't taught the best way to swallow a pill," Dr. Singer said. "You tilt chin down, not backward. Loosens the throat muscles."

Jensen sighed and looked doubtful, but Misha brought him water and the kid tried Dr. Singer's method. It took four painful swallows to get it down. Almost immediately he vomited it back up again and then curled up on his side, tears leaking from his eyes.

Dr. Singer said, "No problem. I'll get the nurse to deliver it via your IV."

"The important thing is you tried," Misha said, feeling stupid that they'd made him try it.

Twenty minutes later, after the intravenous shot for the migraine, an orderly came by to move Jensen upstairs to a shared room in the pediatric ward. The boy in the other bed was bald and thin, maybe seven or eight years old, wearing an L.A. Dodgers ballcap. He was watching cartoons on a TV hanging from the corner. In a proper Sentinel ward, Jensen would have his own room—less chance of being overwhelmed by the smells of disease and medicine. But without official designation, and in a hospital that was already overcrowded, he wasn’t going to get that degree of privacy and isolation.

“I’m Tommy,” the kid said. "Like Tommy Lasorda. I was named after him."

Jensen ignored him. Misha and the orderly helped him move to the new bed. Too late Misha wished he had inspected the sheets and pillows himself for strong laundry smells, but it wasn't as if he had a spare set to swap them with. Jensen curled up on his side, squeezing his eyes shut.

“This is Jensen,” Misha told Tommy. “He’s not feeling well.”

Tommy gave Misha a frown. “No one feels good in a hospital.”

"Do you think you could be extra special quiet today?" Misha asked. "No TV or loud noises? He has a very bad headache."

"You want me to turn off the TV?"

"Yes," Misha said.

"No," Jensen ground out. "It's okay. Leave it on."

Misha was surprised, but didn't want to argue about it. He stepped out long enough to let Dr. Anderson's office know where he was, and then spent twenty minutes arguing on the phone with a representative at St. Mary's. They wouldn't send anyone over to treat Jensen because he didn't have a Sentinel designation, but he couldn't get a designation until he was professionally evaluated, and he couldn't get evaluated at Portland Grace.

After several minutes of fruitless argument, Misha hung up and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

"You came up with that kid, right?" asked one of the nurses.

"Yes."

"He's gone."

End of part 2


	3. Gone

"He's what?" Misha dashed back to Jensen's room. The bed and bathroom were both empty. Jensen had unhooked his own IV. Under other circumstances, Misha might have been impressed. “Tommy, where did he go?”

The other kid shrugged and turned the page of his comic book. “He didn’t tell me.”

"I'll call Security," the nurse said.

"No," he snapped. “It'll only upset him. I'll find him."

The nearest exit was a fire door past the soda machines. Misha pushed open the safety bar with two hands and the noise of it ricocheted off the concrete stairwell. Between his bad leg, fever and migraine, Jensen had made it down half a flight before collapsing against the wall. He was conscious, but breathing heavily. The paper gown was no protection against the cold air and he was shivering.

For the first time in his life, Misha wished he’d had brothers. Being an only child sometimes left him feeling unequipped to deal with children. He sat down next to Jensen and asked, more sharply than he meant, “Where are you going?”

"Can't stay," Jensen mumbled. He turned his face against the cold concrete. "Have to keep moving."

"Why? Are you in trouble with the police?"

Jensen turned to him. Exhaustion shone in his face, made his voice quiver. His green eyes were watery. "Social workers always want to send you back. I can't go back."

"Okay," Misha said. "But you can't leave here. You're very sick."

"They send you back," Jensen muttered, and started to slump forward

Misha caught him. Jensen's head lolled against Misha's shoulder and his whole body was a limp, hot weight. Misha's knees and back complained as he lifted the kid and carried him back up the stairs to his bed. Tommy asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a little sick,” Misha said.

“He doesn’t look as sick as I am, and I have leukemia,” Tommy replied.

Jensen started to stir. He blinked up at Misha, confused.

"Listen to me," Misha said sternly. "You're staying right here even if I have to sit on you. No one's sending you anywhere, and when you're feeling better we'll figure out what to do about the social worker, okay?"

Jensen stared up at him, eyes fever-bright. "Promise?"

"I promise," Misha said, and was surprised at how much he meant it.

#

Dr. Sarah Anderson was the hospital president and a friend of Misha's father. Which explained how he'd scored this summer job, and her willingness to let Misha forgo office duties for guide work with Teenage-I’m-Not-A-Sentinel over the next few days.

"But if he is a Sentinel, and he bonds with you, what are you going to do then?" she asked, quite sensibly, as they sat in her office. Rain sloshed against the winds and the old steam heater rattled in an ominous way.

Misha was dabbing at his pants with a wet cloth, trying to blot out the last of Jensen’s mess. "He's too sick to bond with anyone right now.”

She didn't look convinced. "You might end up damaging that kid even further."

"No bonding," Misha repeated. "I'm not a Guide. But I am going to call the Guide Institute, maybe an advocate or two, and see if they can put some pressure on St. Mary’s to send someone over.”

“You’re going to have to notify our social workers. He might have worried parents who are looking for him. Or someone in his family we can contact.”

“Or he might be from an abusive home, and he's running away. Again."

Dr. Anderson tapped her fingernails lightly on her desk. “I didn’t say we were going to turn him over to the first person who showed up and claimed him. But we can’t continue to treat a juvenile patient without trying to find his parents. Are you staying overnight with him?”

“It seems like a good idea,” Misha replied, but now that he thought of it, he needed to change clothes, feed his cat, grab some dinner, and maybe unearth one of his Sentinel medical books from one of the cardboard boxes shoved in the back of his closet. But he’d made a promise not to leave. The number of people he could call in Portland to do him a favor and swing by his apartment was depressingly low. That’s what you get for being an anti-social recluse said a voice in his head – his last girlfriend, Janice, who he’d left behind in Seattle because she was correct too often.

Dr. Anderson said, “Whatever happened with you at the Guide Institute doesn’t matter now. I trust you to do right by this kid--”

He bristled a little. “Of course I will.”

“--I’m just begging you not to leave us open to legal liability,” she finished smoothly. “If his conditions worsens, if he goes into a zone you can’t pull him out of, if he bonds with you, if his parents show up and they’re want to start a fuss—“

“I’ll protect the hospital,” he promised.

She gave him a faintly disapproving look. “Protect the kid, Misha. I’ll protect the hospital. Just don't do anything stupid.”

#

Misha’s first stop after Dr. Anderson’s office was the social work department. He debated his approach in the elevator. Without official standing, he couldn’t actually ban them from talking to Jensen. But he could try his most winning, charming smile, if he remembered where he’d left it. He hadn’t used it since Seattle.

Luckily the hospital’s chief social worker was home with a cold, and the other was in training all day. Misha figured Jensen was safe from well-meaning inquisitions until morning. He went back down to Jensen and Tommy’s room. Tommy was out, but a perky young nurse with a blond ponytail was attempting to re-insert the IV that Jensen had pulled out earlier. She was speaking calmly to him, but he had scooted back against his pillows and was nearly hyperventilating.

“Stop!” Misha ordered.

“It'll only sting for a minute,” she said. “Just calm down —“

“You shouldn’t be touching him without permission,” Misha said sternly, and circled the bed to stand alongside Jensen. “Your touch is unfamiliar and it sets off all his alarms.”

She smiled tolerantly at them both. “He's supposed to be receiving IV antibiotics. Dr. Singer's orders.”

"He's not ready for you right now. You'll have to come back later..”

“I don’t need your permission,” she snapped.

“”You need a Guide’s permission to touch any Sentinel patient,” Misha replied firmly. “That’s federal law. So take this and go away. Now.”

Carol – he could see her nametag now – gave him a dirty look before stalking out of the room. Misha knew she’d probably go get her supervisor. It wasn’t wise of him to alienate the nursing staff so early on but some things couldn’t be helped.

“Jensen, look at me,” he said, careful not to touch him. “Focus on me, not anyone else. She’s not a threat and she’s gone.”

Jensen blinked at him but there wasn’t a lot of awareness in it.

Misha grabbed his nearest hand. “Come on, I’m right here. Feel my hand. Feel the blood pumping under my skin. Sentinels need a lot of tactile information. Did you know that? But not from strangers who grab you while you’re sleeping. That’s an attack, and if you’re sick, all your defenses go haywire. If you were well, you’d probably have punched her.“

“Can’t punch a girl,” Jensen forced out, and Misha was glad he was able to talk.

“Usually not,” Misha said. “Can you feel my heartbeat through my fingers?”

“No. I can’t do stuff like that.”

“What, is your eyesight better? Can you count the capillaries in my eyes?”

Jensen quickly glanced away. “No.”

“Can you hear the nurse in the hall?”

A quick grimace. “She’s complaining about you.”

It was the first admission he'd made that his senses were extraordinary. Misha didn't point it out to him.

Instead he said, “I thought she might. How’s your head? That painkiller helping?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t believe you. Why don’t you lie down again?”

Jensen plastered himself backward. “Hurts to lie down.”

That might be true, because of blood flowing into the head. Misha said, “I’ll adjust the bed,” and while he was doing that, Jensen’s breathing slowed to normal. He curled up on his side, careful with his injured leg, and Misha got the ice pack back on his head. The ice had mostly melted.

“What do you usually do when you get headaches like this?” Misha asked, scooting a chair closer. “How do you treat them?”

“I don’t.”

“Get them or treat them?”

“Treat. Nothing helps.”

“We can work on ways to make them go away,” Misha said. “But first I have to talk to your nurse and get you more ice. You want something to eat or drink?”

“You want me to barf?”

“Stay here. I’ll be back,” Misha said, and went to go deal with the unhappy nurse and her supervisor.

end of part 3


	4. Chapter 4

Eventually Misha smoothed things over enough so that a different nurse, Abby, agreed to take over the job of re-inserting Jensen's IV. Jensen bore the procedure without complaint, staring at the TV by Tommy's bed. Abby was Misha's own age, didn't ask unnecessary questions, and wrinkled her nose a little at Misha's stained pants.

"I can get you a pair of scrubs," she offered.

Misha glanced downward. "That bad?"

"Kinda bad," she said.

For Jensen's sake, if not his own, he changed into the scrub pants – dark blue, too loose, but comfortable. That solved one problem. When Jensen drifted off to sleep, Misha dashed down to the staff library and snagged the only reference book they had on Sentinel medicine. He also grabbed some novels that someone had left on the free cart. A quick stop at the coffee machine got him some liquid nourishment. He settled next to Jensen's bed with the reference book and listened to Tommy's cartoons and hoped Jensen could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

At four-thirty, however, Tommy's mother and father arrived, along with an older brother and younger sister, all of them loud and wet and tracking mud. The sister had chocolate on her face. The parents reeked of cigarettes. Jensen jerked awake, eyes wide, gasping. Then he threw his arm across his eyes, trying to block out the room.

Misha stood up and said, loudly, "Excuse me. Wouldn't you like to take Tommy for a trip down to the playroom? He's been cooped up in here all day."

The father eyed Misha belligerently. "Who are you?"

"Do you feel cooped up?" the mother asked Tommy.

"I don't like the playroom," the sister said.

Tommy was already trying to get out of bed. "Can we? I want to go."

Misha said, firmly, "It's much more fun down there."

The father continued to give Misha the stink eye but Tommy was happy to climb into a wheelchair for the ride down to the playroom. When the room had emptied out, Misha pulled the privacy curtain closed and said, "Maybe they'll be gone for awhile."

"It's okay," Jensen muttered. "It's his room, too. And they probably have insurance."

"Are you worried about the bill?" Misha asked curiously. "Last time I checked, there's no debtor's prison for minors. You won't end up in a blacking factory like Charles Dickens."

"A what?"

"Where they used to make shoe polish," Misha said. "How's your head, on a scale of 1 to 10? 10 is the worst."

"I dunno. Five."

"You're holding the sides of the bed. Do you feel dizzy?"

"A little. Maybe."

"Can I take your pulse?"

Jensen blinked at him. "You're not a doctor."

"You don't need a medical degree to take a pulse," Misha pointed out.

One of Jensen's shoulders lifted and dropped in a shrug.

Misha took his pulse – too fast, no surprise there – and kept his fingers on Jensen's too-warm skin. "Are you hungry?"

"Do you want me to throw up on you again?"

"Not really," Misha said.

Jensen closed his eyes. His face was still tense with concentration, or maybe sensory overload. Misha imagined all the sounds that could be flooding into him: the rain and radiator, the sounds of traffic and the city, the chatter of nurses and other patients and their visitors, the elevators grinding in their shafts. He wished they had a white noise machine somewhere in the hospital.

"I got some books," he said. "Want me to read aloud?"

"I'm not a little kid," Jensen muttered.

"Focusing on one voice can help you exclude other noises."

A moment of silence. "If you want to."

Misha turned off the TV and read the opening chapters of a Lee Child book. It wasn't the most restful of stories – a bus skidding off a highway into a snowbank – but it was easy, interesting, and Jensen didn't seem to mind. His pulse slowed a little under Misha's fingertips and his grip on the sides of the bed eased off. They had a good thirty minutes before an orderly came in wheeling the dinner trays and Tommy and his family returned and a nurse came by to check on Jensen's temperature.

Jensen was obviously miserable and Misha's own blood pressure skyrocketed. The privacy curtain wasn't enough, wouldn't be enough. He went to the nursing supervisor.

"Jensen is a Sentinel and he needs his own room," Misha said.

The supervisor, Liz, didn't look up from her chart. "He's not coded, we don't treat Sentinels, and where are you going to put him? The closet?"

"What about another ward?"

"You want to put him with burn patients? Intensive care? They don't have the staff and they don't have the beds, either." She looked up. "He's a pediatric patient, Misha. He doesn't have insurance. He's not going anywhere unless you get him transferred or discharged."

Misha tried to keep his blood pressure from skyrocketing. "You're telling me that there is no way on earth that a pediatric patient without insurance can be put into a private room anywhere in this hospital?"

Something flickered on her face.

"What?" Misha asked.

She sighed. "Nothing. He's not infectious."

"But if he were . . . " Misha said.

He paged Dr. Singer. The doctor didn't appear for thirty minutes, and he looked exhausted from all day in the E.R. He did a quick review of Jensen's chart and frowned down at him. Over in Tommy's side of the room, his parents were chatting loudly about the day Tommy would be well enough to return to school, and his siblings were bickering over candy they'd bought in the vending machine.

"How's the migraine?" Dr. Singer asked. "That shot should have taken effect by now."

Jensen shook his head very slightly, as if afraid of disappointing them.

"Triptans don't work on some Sentinels," Misha pointed out.

"I'm not ready to try narcotics," Dr. Singer said. "Let's try again, this time with the nasal spray. Less dizziness or other side effects."

"What about the isolation?" Misha asked.

"Probably I'm breaking six different regulations, but yeah . . . if you think so."

Jensen's eyes widened in alarm. "Isolation?"

"So that no one disturbs you," Misha said.

"No," Jensen said adamantly. "I can't – no. I don't want to."

Dr. Singer glanced between the two of them. "Well, I'll leave the recommendation. You two work it out."

The doctor left. Misha said, "If we move to an isolation room, you'll be able to rest better."

"I don't like them," Jensen said. "Too alone."

"You won't be alone. I'll be with you."

"You have to go home sometime."

Misha didn't know how to make it any clearer. "I said I'd stay. I'm not going home."

Jensen's gaze shifted to the privacy curtain and the people beyond it.

"The mother smells like cancer, too," he whispered. "She doesn't know it."

Misha carefully patted his arm. "Let's move to the isolation room. You won't be alone."

Everything took much longer than Misha thought it should, but after twenty minutes the nurse brought the nasal spray Dr. Singer had requested. Jensen made a face at the taste or smell of the mist, but he didn't have any adverse reactions. Fifteen minutes after that, an orderly came to move Jensen and the IV equipment. Jensen endured the wheelchair ride to his new room silently, his face pinched.

"What's wrong?" Misha asked once he was settled in the new bed.

"Nothing."

"Tell me," Misha said firmly. "I can't help if you don't tell me."

"I feel carsick. This sucks."

Misha turned off the lights, scrawled a "Do Not Disturb" sign for the door, and took a warm wet washcloth to Jensen's free left hand.

"I know this is awful, top to bottom terrible, but it's going to get better," Misha said. "It's going to get better and you're going to get out of here and lead a nice healthy life with your own guide. Right now you're exhausted and everything's magnified a thousand times. Try to concentrate on this washcloth. How warm it is, how nice it is to be clean."

Jensen's hand twitched, but he didn't try to pull it away. Misha took that as an encouraging sign.

"When I was fourteen years old I knew I was going to be a Guide," Misha said. "I enrolled in training and I loved it. I wanted to be a Guide more than any other kid in the program. Eventually I realized I could help more people as a physician, so I switched to pre-med."

He worked the warm cloth between Jensen's fingers, around his thin wrist. The kid probably hadn't seen a hot meal in weeks, if not longer. They'd have to get him eating soon. Sentinels did very poorly with feeding tubes.

Misha kept talking." Did you know that half of all the bones in your body are in your hands and feet? I thought that was an interesting fact from Anatomy. And that you have more bones as an infant than you do as an adult. Some of them fuse together."

He kept up the idle chatter, little tidbits he'd picked up in school, as he continued to circle the warm cloth on Jensen's hand and wrist. Jensen didn't respond verbally, but when Misha glanced up, Jensen was watching him through slitted eyes.

"Can I do your other hand?" Misha asked.

A reluctant but clear, "Okay."

That hand was harder, because of the IV port, but Misha was careful. When he was done he refilled the ice pack for Jensen's head and wet the cloth again, going back to the left hand. He wanted to do the kid's legs and face, too—if this was his own Sentinel, he'd be doing that—but Misha was an adult and Jensen was still a minor and there were boundaries he had to respect.

"Many Sentinels get very antsy when they're dirty," he offered. "Even when they can't consciously feel the dirt, it's an irritant. I can get a nurse to give you a sponge bath and that'll help."

"No," Jensen said. "Shower."

Misha glanced doubtfully at the wound on his leg. "We don't want to get that or your IV wet. And I'm not sure you'd be very steady, even with a bench to sit on."

Jensen looked crestfallen. Misha said, "I won't leave while the nurse bathes you. I'll make sure she's careful."

"No, I'm okay." Jensen turned his head aside. "I want to sleep now. Please be quiet."

End of part 4


End file.
